Even if Biden squeaks through a victory in November, him choosing to run again back in 2022/2023 was an act of incredible selfishness, and choosing personal ego over the good of the country.
Remember that the Democratic establishment didn’t want to go with Obama in 2008. Their politics are incompatible with enthusiastic support and they need to be dragged into adopting popular messages. Anything that smells like “change” means the dinosaurs who have been in office for decades haven’t actually been doing the best job anyone could possibly do.
Right wing smearing is to be taken for granted. An open nomination process could have brought to the fore someone younger and with more energy to campaign. And Biden was never a terrific campaigner to begin with.
Basically, his ego got the better of him, exactly the same as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Is there anyone besides Shapiro that polls better than Biden in a head to head matchup with Trump? Last I checked other good candidates like Witmer and Newsome are losing to Trump by double digits. I would absolutely prefer one of those 3, but they didn’t want to run this time.
Josh Shapiro… Governor of PA. One of the only people that polls better than Biden against Trump. Cornell West isn’t even close. Barney the dinosaur has a better shot.
i will not vote for josh shapiro. he said he’d fix the opioid epidemic and went after doctors and patients instead of the pharmaceutical companies. then he financed a christofascist in the republican primary in dangerous fucking gambit. he’s a piece of shit. fuck him. he’s a fucking cop. fuck him. he’s a fucking bastard.
Just because west isn’t polling there now doesn’t mean he couldn’t be. Trump is unpopular enough that literally any random person on the internet could beat him if they were made the dem nominee. If Dems want to win this election, they have to cut Biden out. He’s going to lose, because of the genocide. I don’t doubt that Shapiro could also win, as long as the DNC gets behind him.
So instead of the current president of the United States that has beaten Trump before, you want to put up someone with zero name ID less than a year before the election?
Listen, I don’t dislike West. He’s got some good ideas. He absolutely cannot win a national election with this little time to campaign. That’s the problem with the idea that the Democrats can replace Biden and run someone else. That opportunity has straight up passed. No one else has the fundraising, campaign staff, or name ID to start running a presidential campaign now. I really wish there was, but there isnt. Even if the entire Democrat campaign apparatus was behind them. It simply takes time that isn’t there anymore.
It’s gonna be Biden or Trump, so we might as well do everything we can to insure it’s Biden because if it’s not we might not have the opportunity to get better candidates in the future. 2028 has some solid presidential candidates in the pipeline for the Democrats.
Sure Biden might lose, but that’s not a forgone conclusion and being a defeatist isn’t going to help anyone but the GOP.
Have you noticed that a lot of people aren’t so keen on this trump fella? I’m pretty sure I could beat trump if the DNC got behind me, and I’m not even 35. The only guy who can’t beat him is the one currently doing a genocide and also overseeing a tanking economy from the working class perspective. It is MARCH. if we had a sane country, the start of the election would still be at least 2 months out. It’s definitely not too late, especially with how polls are looking. 100K Uncommitted Democrats in Michigan, a state Biden only won by 10K statewide. This election and the plans moving forward are too important to leave with a guy who is deeply unpopular, losing cognitive function by the day, and is at best 50/50 to even survive his term. Oh yeah and that guy is also committing a genocide.
I’m a socialist, and I plan to vote for trump, solely over the genocide. But even if you think Biden is less bad than trump, we cannot afford to have someone as awful as the lesser of those evils. Like, if the election is Biden Trump, we have already lost, which side wins is almost irrelevant. The urgent problem is not that Trump might win, it’s that even if he doesn’t, the winner is still deeply unqualified to be president. I mean fuck, let’s just nominate Obama. If trump can run then Obama can. And I think obama was an awful president. But at least he is popular, knows where he is the entire time he’s awake, and isn’t going to die before 2028.
People think that democracy will die by court rulings, trump getting away with a coup, etc. But it won’t. Democracy will die when 70+% of the country or so says “that’s not my president, and he isn’t my neighbor’s president, so why would I listen to his government?”
I think just the opposite. While we all want to raise a new crop of candidates from a younger generation, I don’t see how any have developed a National following yet. Maybe it takes a presidential campaign to do so, I don’t know, but I looked around and didn’t see anyone with the name recognition to campaign against Trump. While I prefer a more Progressive platform, a moderate like Biden is more likely to catch undecideds. If Republicans went with a new candidate, fine, start from the same place, but we can’t afford to start over building national recognition, can’t afford to lose undecideds, when we’ve seen what Trump can do to divide us so we fight each other, the effectiveness and reliability of our government, our stature in the world, the very future of our society.
Trump’s rhetoric this time has been much much worse, counter to American ideals, ethics, Democracy, engagement in the world, investing in our future, human rights. He clearly comes across as the type of ruler that US generally opposes in third world countries. And he’s willing to say it out loud. We can’t afford to develop a new person, if it risks Trump being elected.
The Dems have a bench of pretty impressive governors, who could have risen to prominence by going through a primary campaign. It’s hard to think of Biden as the best possible hope against Trump, given that he has a 38 percent approval rating, a bit lower than Trump at this point and 10 points below Obama…
Obama had no national following. He was an up and coming candidate that actually got a chance. Candidates that have a decade on the national stage aren’t always the only option.
Not American, just a rabid follower of US Politics.
I think Dems are at a tactical disadvantage having had no one primary Biden. If god forbid anything happens between now and election day they have no one that the public knows well as backup. I watched Kamala Harris speak at Selma on the weekend; I support her as the first woman in her role but I am incredibly skeptical of her ability in any way shape or form to carry a general election.
Now Republicans have solved that problem by having a clear backup: Nikki Haley. I see there are reports right now that she is dropping out. She is, however, a viable and well-known backup due to her tenacity in staying in the race. If the GOP needed to rally behind a new candidate the cutover to her would be smoother because she has stayed in the spotlight.
When candidates drop out in our races, they often tell their supporters (including any delegates they may have accumulated) who to support instead. It looks like Haley will just “suspend” her campaign, and not give any endorsement at all to Trump.
This mainly gives her the upper hand in case Trump eats one hamburger too many between now and the Convention. As the only other candidate with pledged delegates, it makes it easier to gain the nomination when the delegates will be on their own to negotiate what candidate to nominate.
Even if Haley were to drop out and tell her delegates to support Trump, I don’t think the GOP would have issues rallying back to Haley if anything were to happen? Although Republicans also in shambles lately with infighting (Michigan Republican Party drama).
If Biden has to drop the Dems basically don’t have a campaign.
I think we’re saying the same thing but I don’t see Haley’s endorsement or lack thereof of the winning nominee as a roadblock for the GOP looping back around to her if they need to pivot quickly.
It has more to do with the arcane rules surrounding delegates, which are different between the parties. In the event Trump wins enough delegates to secure the nomination but is unable to accept due to an untimely event, Haley may be in the best position to take advantage of that if she is the only other candidate with delegates of her own. Most Republican primaries are winner-take- all, so Haley winning even a single State is significant. (By contrast, if Democrats worked by the same rules, then the “uncommitted” vote would not have earned any delegates.)
The entire Primary process puts a thin veneer of Democracy over what is very much an internal party process to select a candidate.
skeptical of her ability in any way shape or form to carry a general election.
Right, that’s the thing, who else? I’m sure there are great candidates, but they’re starting with much lower name recognition, much less national stature .
I really wanted it to be AOC, but she was vilified and fizzled out
Harris would be fine, but I don’t think her time as VP has helped her national status
who’s Buttegeig (and how do you spell his name?)?
While a Democratic Primary would have helped these other candidates, it could only hurt Biden.
I’ve followed more elections than most people here on Lemmy, and have always been able to say that I agree with one candidate more and disagree with the other more. But I’ve never before felt there’s a candidate that needs to be avoided at all cost, a candidate that is clearly un-American, a candidate that will do harm to pretty much whatever he touches, a candidate so self-centered and corrupt, a candidate so clearly unfit for anything more than reality show huckster
I like Gavin Newsom but that’s just my external perspective. Beto O’Rourke what happened to him? I liked him too.
It’s an interesting perspective that a primary would only hurt Biden. In a scenario where he dropped out do you think swing voters and Dems would happily pivot if they had already been presented with a good alternative or do you think they just wouldn’t vote or would vote R?
Listening to the Super Tuesday interviews with voters last night was nauseating. Comments like “I don’t want to vote for Trump so I’m backing Haley, but if it’s Trump Biden I’m not voting Biden.”
Or my favourite, “The economy was better under Trump.”
The economy is a lagging indicator - it turns slowly not on a dime. Do people not understand this? Obama worked to heal the mess left by the recession and Bush, chugged along, Trump elected - inherited the good economy left from the Obama years, Covid happened and messed everything up globally, Biden inherited THAT clusterfuck plus Ukraine plus Israel and it’s just starting to get back on its feet. Now these idiots are going to claim that it magically changes if the Republicans make it into office but that just doesn’t seem to be reality, again from an outside perspective.
It’s like in Canada - we’ve had our PM for several years now and they’re blaming economic factors on him that he has no control or jurisdiction over.
do you think swing voters and Dems would happily pivot if they had already been presented with a good alternative
It seems to always be in the hands of undecideds. Just under half the voters will usually vote for both parties, so it comes down to who gets the most swing voters to swing their way. Yes, I think someone less well known or less moderate will make more swing voters swing the other way.
It’s a pretty discouraging idea. My vote doesn’t count because I’m not a swing voter, and also doesn’t count because my state is not a swing state. There’s nothing you could do to make me vote for Trump and there’s almost nothing you can do to make my state’s electoral college vote Republican.
They all are though, aren’t they? Gotta get rid of Citizens United for that to change. Newsom just seems like he could appeal broadly. I love Bernie and AOC but they’re way too lefty for the US electorate.
Republicans have used a pretty successful system that generally picks a loser from the previous primary as the winner for the current one. Democrats seem to entirely abandon losing candidates.
Even if Biden squeaks through a victory in November, him choosing to run again back in 2022/2023 was an act of incredible selfishness, and choosing personal ego over the good of the country.
Thing is, I don’t see other Democrats doing better, especially once they’ve been attacked by the right wing smear machine
Damn, if only the democrats had some young enthusiastic members that have firmly refused corporate pac money.
If the DNC didn’t insist on sabotaging themselves we might actually get a candidate that people wanted to vote for instead of against.
Remember that the Democratic establishment didn’t want to go with Obama in 2008. Their politics are incompatible with enthusiastic support and they need to be dragged into adopting popular messages. Anything that smells like “change” means the dinosaurs who have been in office for decades haven’t actually been doing the best job anyone could possibly do.
Right wing smearing is to be taken for granted. An open nomination process could have brought to the fore someone younger and with more energy to campaign. And Biden was never a terrific campaigner to begin with.
Basically, his ego got the better of him, exactly the same as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Lol what? Incumbents have a huge advantage in running. It would be selfish for him not to run.
Not this incumbent, I suggest you read some polls. Biden is probably the only person besides Hillary Clinton that could lose to trump in 2024.
Fuck polls. Polls are broken and have been for quite some time.
Yep! The biggest voting block is now the 18-40s age range and they don’t answer random ass numbers like the boomers. All these polls are garbage.
Says every person who sees a result they don’t like. All while they’ve been more accurate than ever.
'cept the 2020 polls were considered the “worst performance of national polls in 40 years.” Polls are great at identifying what certain individuals feel on a particular day, but in no way predict how a nation will vote.
Is there anyone besides Shapiro that polls better than Biden in a head to head matchup with Trump? Last I checked other good candidates like Witmer and Newsome are losing to Trump by double digits. I would absolutely prefer one of those 3, but they didn’t want to run this time.
Yeah, Cornel West could easily win if the DNC got behind him. Probably Sanders too. Did you mean Ben Shapiro? What?
Josh Shapiro… Governor of PA. One of the only people that polls better than Biden against Trump. Cornell West isn’t even close. Barney the dinosaur has a better shot.
i will not vote for josh shapiro. he said he’d fix the opioid epidemic and went after doctors and patients instead of the pharmaceutical companies. then he financed a christofascist in the republican primary in dangerous fucking gambit. he’s a piece of shit. fuck him. he’s a fucking cop. fuck him. he’s a fucking bastard.
Just because west isn’t polling there now doesn’t mean he couldn’t be. Trump is unpopular enough that literally any random person on the internet could beat him if they were made the dem nominee. If Dems want to win this election, they have to cut Biden out. He’s going to lose, because of the genocide. I don’t doubt that Shapiro could also win, as long as the DNC gets behind him.
So instead of the current president of the United States that has beaten Trump before, you want to put up someone with zero name ID less than a year before the election?
Listen, I don’t dislike West. He’s got some good ideas. He absolutely cannot win a national election with this little time to campaign. That’s the problem with the idea that the Democrats can replace Biden and run someone else. That opportunity has straight up passed. No one else has the fundraising, campaign staff, or name ID to start running a presidential campaign now. I really wish there was, but there isnt. Even if the entire Democrat campaign apparatus was behind them. It simply takes time that isn’t there anymore.
It’s gonna be Biden or Trump, so we might as well do everything we can to insure it’s Biden because if it’s not we might not have the opportunity to get better candidates in the future. 2028 has some solid presidential candidates in the pipeline for the Democrats.
Sure Biden might lose, but that’s not a forgone conclusion and being a defeatist isn’t going to help anyone but the GOP.
Have you noticed that a lot of people aren’t so keen on this trump fella? I’m pretty sure I could beat trump if the DNC got behind me, and I’m not even 35. The only guy who can’t beat him is the one currently doing a genocide and also overseeing a tanking economy from the working class perspective. It is MARCH. if we had a sane country, the start of the election would still be at least 2 months out. It’s definitely not too late, especially with how polls are looking. 100K Uncommitted Democrats in Michigan, a state Biden only won by 10K statewide. This election and the plans moving forward are too important to leave with a guy who is deeply unpopular, losing cognitive function by the day, and is at best 50/50 to even survive his term. Oh yeah and that guy is also committing a genocide.
I’m a socialist, and I plan to vote for trump, solely over the genocide. But even if you think Biden is less bad than trump, we cannot afford to have someone as awful as the lesser of those evils. Like, if the election is Biden Trump, we have already lost, which side wins is almost irrelevant. The urgent problem is not that Trump might win, it’s that even if he doesn’t, the winner is still deeply unqualified to be president. I mean fuck, let’s just nominate Obama. If trump can run then Obama can. And I think obama was an awful president. But at least he is popular, knows where he is the entire time he’s awake, and isn’t going to die before 2028.
People think that democracy will die by court rulings, trump getting away with a coup, etc. But it won’t. Democracy will die when 70+% of the country or so says “that’s not my president, and he isn’t my neighbor’s president, so why would I listen to his government?”
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I think just the opposite. While we all want to raise a new crop of candidates from a younger generation, I don’t see how any have developed a National following yet. Maybe it takes a presidential campaign to do so, I don’t know, but I looked around and didn’t see anyone with the name recognition to campaign against Trump. While I prefer a more Progressive platform, a moderate like Biden is more likely to catch undecideds. If Republicans went with a new candidate, fine, start from the same place, but we can’t afford to start over building national recognition, can’t afford to lose undecideds, when we’ve seen what Trump can do to divide us so we fight each other, the effectiveness and reliability of our government, our stature in the world, the very future of our society.
Trump’s rhetoric this time has been much much worse, counter to American ideals, ethics, Democracy, engagement in the world, investing in our future, human rights. He clearly comes across as the type of ruler that US generally opposes in third world countries. And he’s willing to say it out loud. We can’t afford to develop a new person, if it risks Trump being elected.
The Dems have a bench of pretty impressive governors, who could have risen to prominence by going through a primary campaign. It’s hard to think of Biden as the best possible hope against Trump, given that he has a 38 percent approval rating, a bit lower than Trump at this point and 10 points below Obama…
Unfortunately Biden polls better against trump than Witmer/Newsome. I really hope we can get Witmer/Shapiro/Newsome on the ticket in 28’.
Obama had no national following. He was an up and coming candidate that actually got a chance. Candidates that have a decade on the national stage aren’t always the only option.
They are now. The party will never let another Obama through the primaries.
Not American, just a rabid follower of US Politics.
I think Dems are at a tactical disadvantage having had no one primary Biden. If god forbid anything happens between now and election day they have no one that the public knows well as backup. I watched Kamala Harris speak at Selma on the weekend; I support her as the first woman in her role but I am incredibly skeptical of her ability in any way shape or form to carry a general election.
Now Republicans have solved that problem by having a clear backup: Nikki Haley. I see there are reports right now that she is dropping out. She is, however, a viable and well-known backup due to her tenacity in staying in the race. If the GOP needed to rally behind a new candidate the cutover to her would be smoother because she has stayed in the spotlight.
When candidates drop out in our races, they often tell their supporters (including any delegates they may have accumulated) who to support instead. It looks like Haley will just “suspend” her campaign, and not give any endorsement at all to Trump.
This mainly gives her the upper hand in case Trump eats one hamburger too many between now and the Convention. As the only other candidate with pledged delegates, it makes it easier to gain the nomination when the delegates will be on their own to negotiate what candidate to nominate.
Even if Haley were to drop out and tell her delegates to support Trump, I don’t think the GOP would have issues rallying back to Haley if anything were to happen? Although Republicans also in shambles lately with infighting (Michigan Republican Party drama).
If Biden has to drop the Dems basically don’t have a campaign.
I think we’re saying the same thing but I don’t see Haley’s endorsement or lack thereof of the winning nominee as a roadblock for the GOP looping back around to her if they need to pivot quickly.
It has more to do with the arcane rules surrounding delegates, which are different between the parties. In the event Trump wins enough delegates to secure the nomination but is unable to accept due to an untimely event, Haley may be in the best position to take advantage of that if she is the only other candidate with delegates of her own. Most Republican primaries are winner-take- all, so Haley winning even a single State is significant. (By contrast, if Democrats worked by the same rules, then the “uncommitted” vote would not have earned any delegates.)
The entire Primary process puts a thin veneer of Democracy over what is very much an internal party process to select a candidate.
Right, that’s the thing, who else? I’m sure there are great candidates, but they’re starting with much lower name recognition, much less national stature .
While a Democratic Primary would have helped these other candidates, it could only hurt Biden.
I’ve followed more elections than most people here on Lemmy, and have always been able to say that I agree with one candidate more and disagree with the other more. But I’ve never before felt there’s a candidate that needs to be avoided at all cost, a candidate that is clearly un-American, a candidate that will do harm to pretty much whatever he touches, a candidate so self-centered and corrupt, a candidate so clearly unfit for anything more than reality show huckster
I like Gavin Newsom but that’s just my external perspective. Beto O’Rourke what happened to him? I liked him too.
It’s an interesting perspective that a primary would only hurt Biden. In a scenario where he dropped out do you think swing voters and Dems would happily pivot if they had already been presented with a good alternative or do you think they just wouldn’t vote or would vote R?
Listening to the Super Tuesday interviews with voters last night was nauseating. Comments like “I don’t want to vote for Trump so I’m backing Haley, but if it’s Trump Biden I’m not voting Biden.”
Or my favourite, “The economy was better under Trump.”
The economy is a lagging indicator - it turns slowly not on a dime. Do people not understand this? Obama worked to heal the mess left by the recession and Bush, chugged along, Trump elected - inherited the good economy left from the Obama years, Covid happened and messed everything up globally, Biden inherited THAT clusterfuck plus Ukraine plus Israel and it’s just starting to get back on its feet. Now these idiots are going to claim that it magically changes if the Republicans make it into office but that just doesn’t seem to be reality, again from an outside perspective.
It’s like in Canada - we’ve had our PM for several years now and they’re blaming economic factors on him that he has no control or jurisdiction over.
It seems to always be in the hands of undecideds. Just under half the voters will usually vote for both parties, so it comes down to who gets the most swing voters to swing their way. Yes, I think someone less well known or less moderate will make more swing voters swing the other way.
It’s a pretty discouraging idea. My vote doesn’t count because I’m not a swing voter, and also doesn’t count because my state is not a swing state. There’s nothing you could do to make me vote for Trump and there’s almost nothing you can do to make my state’s electoral college vote Republican.
Newsom is just another corporate stooge. No one in California wants him to be president.
They all are though, aren’t they? Gotta get rid of Citizens United for that to change. Newsom just seems like he could appeal broadly. I love Bernie and AOC but they’re way too lefty for the US electorate.
It’s neat how “no matter who” never includes progressives.
Republicans have used a pretty successful system that generally picks a loser from the previous primary as the winner for the current one. Democrats seem to entirely abandon losing candidates.